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“Previously, most speeches were about how people had struggled after losing their sight,” says Mano, “but more recently, speakers have mainly talked about general subjects that transcend their disabilities. In 1999, the contest was won by Miyuki Inoue, who gave a speech full of emotion and humor that expressed her thanks to her mother for raising her, and she received great reaction. After the contest, her story was published which became a best seller. This kind of thing is totally encouraging for students at schools for the blind.”
The Sumitomo Group Public Affairs Committee has been the lead sponsor of the speech contest since 2003, in light of the similarities between the Sumitomo Group message of “Passing important values from people to people,” introduced in 1993, and the contest’s aim of expressing one’s own feelings with one’s own words.
Thanks to the support of the Sumitomo Group Public Affairs Committee, the speeches of all contest participants have been collected in book form and given to 3,000 public libraries, universities, and other facilities across Japan. The book has been published both in regular print and in Braille, thanks to Mano’s desire that sighted people not only get to know about the speech contest but also become familiar with Braille.
The three prize winners were also awarded a study trip to visit a Japanese language school for people with visual impairments in Tianjin, China. “At the Braille Mainichi, we think it’s really important to treat people with visual impairments as equals,” says Mano. “As well as getting close to people with visual impairments and empathizing with them, our editorial stance is not to be patronizing, by saying the things that have to be said.”
According to Mano, this editorial policy has not changed since the paper was launched. Principles like this can also be said to be the starting point for universal design. |
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| Tetsuo Mano, managing editor, The Braille Mainichi, The Mainichi Newspaper |
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